Introducing the Chaos Theory of Careers and how it can help students

Did you know you were going to be a college counsellor when you were 17 years old? 

Most of us probably didn’t. When I was in high school, I wasn’t aware that college counselling could be a viable full-time job. 

My career path has been shaped by unexpected turns, formative encounters and developments unaccounted for – which I’m sure is also true for most, if not all, of us out there.

My journey into university counselling

My journey summarised briefly: I started off as a secondary biology education major, and then switched my major to psychology in my third year of college, after realising that I didn’t like working with high school students as a biology teacher (10 years later, I realise I do actually enjoy working with high school students, but in a different context).

I realised I loved psychology, so I started a master’s-PhD combined programme in clinical psychology with a neuropsychology focus. Because of personal and fit issues, I dropped out of my PhD programme and instead started (and managed to complete) a master’s degree in cognitive science in a new country across the Atlantic Ocean. 

During my master’s programme, I started teaching psychology courses part-time at a local educational institute that also offers advising for students. After I finished my master’s, I worked briefly as an English teacher, and then got a full-time role at the aforementioned institute, advising students and teaching psychology. I actually didn’t consider college counselling at an international school until a colleague mentioned in a conversation that my student advising overlapped well with college counselling. Following his advice, I applied – and two years ago found myself in China, a country I’d never previously visited, in a new role as a college counsellor. 

Stepping off the career ladder

I’m sure we all have stories like this to share, with their own twists and turns. The statistics support this, too. In fact, on average, individuals change their jobs 12 to 16 times and their careers between three and seven times.

Only 27 per cent of college grads in the US end up in a career related to their major.

Then why do so many of us still assume a straight and simplified view of career progression? Society talks about “climbing a career ladder”, which parents, students and counsellors visualise together. 

As educators responsible for our students’ career development, it’s important for us to think about career development in a more expansive way. This means moving away from the simplified view of climbing a career ladder, the idea of knowing where you’ll be in five or 10 years’ time or the assumption that the question “What do you want to do when you grow up?” has only one answer. 

Postmodern career theories and conceptual frameworks can help us with this. This article focuses on the Chaos Theory of Careers but in part two of this series I will also examine Planned Happenstance Theory and the conceptual framework from the book The Squiggly Career. 

Acknowledging the chaos of reality: the Chaos Theory of Careers

Imagine you’re alone in an empty room, with a ping-pong ball. Can you predict that the ball will land near your feet if you drop the ball from waist height? The answer is probably yes.

Now imagine this scenario but with a ball-chasing puppy and a strong fan near you. How certain are you now of the trajectory of the ball? Probably less so compared with the first scenario.

Now imagine there is a pack of eager puppies, a series of fans, an open window with a gale and, to top it off, you’re walking on a treadmill. How confident are you now about the ball’s trajectory?

Australian career scholars Robert Pryor and Jim Bright, who developed the Chaos Theory of Careers, propose that career decisions and actions take place in a scenario that’s analogous to the third scenario (with a pack of puppies) and not at all like the first (an empty room). So many factors could influence a decision – and will interact in unpredictable ways – so we can’t really predict our own career trajectory. Bright explains this analogy in this video.

Can you think of a seemingly minor, unpredictable event in your own career journey that caused a butterfly effect that led you where you are now? Examples could include a workshop, a conversation or an encounter. 

I started university intending to be a biology teacher but then I heard about the field of clinical neuropsychology from a psychology professor in a class I took randomly, given the flexible nature of liberal arts colleges. It was love at first sight, and I changed my major. This unexpected instance of hearing about clinical neuropsychology and the lasting impact it had on me illustrates Chaos Theory of Careers in my case. 

How can counsellors use the Chaos Theory of Careers?

Pryor and Bright borrow heavily from the language of chaos theory in mathematics to explain career development. As a result, the original paper and recent developments contain references to mathematical concepts such as fractals, emergence, attractors, phase shift, non-linearity and feedback, all applied to the world of careers. 

The National Career Development Association (NCDA) boils down these heavily theoretical ideas to the following more practical suggestions: 

• Reframe the pejorative “undecided” as “open-minded”
• Encourage preparation, not planning
• Emphasise adaptation over deciding (de-emphasise the finality of choices)
• Try “fuzzy goals”, which are flexible and short-term
• Grow client self-awareness and build transferrable skills.

This NCDA article suggests some exercises to try with your students, based on the Chaos Theory of Careers. 

Overall, the Chaos Theory is a good way to start acknowledging the existence and impact of unpredictability in the world of careers. 

In part two of this series we will look at a theory that can help you instil more agency in your students in a chaotic world.